The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 22, 1919, Page 6

Tlonpartisan Teader Official Magazine of the National Nonpartisan League—Every Week 1915, at the postoffice at St. Paul, Entered as second-class matter September 3, Minnesota, under the Act of March 3, 1879. OLIVER S. MORRIS, Editor E. B. Fussell and A. B. Gilbert, Associate Editors. Advertising rates on application. Subscription, one year, in advance, $2.50; six months, $1.50. Please do not make checks, drafts nor money orders payable to indi- viduals. Address all letters and make all remittances to The Nonpartisan Leader, Box 575, St. Paul, Minn. 2 MEMBER OF AUDIT BUREAU OF CIRCULATIONS THE S. C. BECKWITH SPECIAL AGENCY, York, Chicago, St. Louis, Detroit, Kansas City. B. 0. Foss, Art Editor. Advertising Representatives, New Quack, fraudulent and irresponsible firms are not knowingly advertised, and we will take it as a favor if any readers will advise us promptly should they have occasioh to doubt or question the reliability of any firm which patronizes our advertising columns. & WHERE WILL THE MONEY COME FROM? OR the fiscal year ending June 80, 1920, congress must raise, Fin round numbers, $11,000,000,000 for the expenses:of the federal government, according to the Searchlight. Of this amount less than half is in sight. The total revenue from income, corporation, war, consumption and other direct and special taxes will be $4,185,510,000. Where is congress to find the remaining five or six billions needed? The Searchlight asks, “How would YOU raise this sum, if you were congress?”’ - The question will bring out a variety of answers. A billion or two more can be raised without any suffering by anybody by additional taxes on big incomes. Small and moderate incomes, up to $6,000 or $7,000 a year, probably are standing as much tax as they can. But it will not hurt the rich to forego a few automo- biles, yachts, sealskins and diamonds during this national financial crisis. Just to illustrate: Our morning paper has an account of l Ak ! v, HELP YOURSELF “, UNCLET ¢ e Y e fi\é & UNEARNED 25, | o LWEALTH %fificgmes. % c°b . 53 = = X N3 S a “made-to-order automobile,” costing $12,000, purchased by a rich man. The finest stock-automobile was not good enough for this aristocrat. The $8,000 or $9,000 extra this man paid to get a spe- . cially made car could have gone into the United: States treasury without causing him or anybody else any discomfort. W We must, so the president tells us, be chary about trying to increase duties and customs to get more revenue, for our greatest need for the next few years is a foreign market for our products. If we raise_a barrier against imports by ill-advised import taxes, other nations will retaliate, barring our products or putting them * at a great disadvantage. Be handed right down to the average man, who will pay it in in- creased prices. Amusements of the common people, such as the- aters, are now paying an excessive tax. More consumption taxes would be folly, as the poor would stand the burden. Where, then, are we to get the money? It can be obtained, and obtained easily. Excess war or other profits of big corporations can be doubled, without preventing rea- sonable returns in dividends on stock of such corporatiens. In- heritance taxes on big fortunes will yield vast sums, without doing - any more harm than preventing someone getting the money who has not earned it. And after these sources are all tapped, there are still vast accumulations of wealth, largely. unearned, which could be virtually confiscated above a certain reasonable amount by well-considered taxes. In fact, all the money needed could be ob- tained from the sources here mentioned, even taking much of the present burden off of the people in poor or moderate circumstances. But who imagines that congress will have the courage to de- visel?htg.xation plan that will tend to equalize instead of concentrate wealth? : AN EPOCH-MAKING DECISION IR ) HE opinion of Federal Judge C. F. Amidon of North Dakota, in which he refused to grant coal companies an injunction against Governor Frazier to compel a return of the coal mines, which the governor had seized pending settlement of the labor dispute which tied up production, is a brilliant and telling defense of the right of the people to coal, despite technicalities / / iy L7 /,% i . s Y 7 7 ) b 'I%/Ill/// ‘%I/ //IA (/éll @II/ V/Il /////. '//Ik 'l///, ’//{//4 M %/// V///II% /// " raised by the mine operators concerning “sacred private property Increased taxes om transportation will - _as much rights.” Judge Amidon simply decided that when capital and labor are at outs and the people about to freeze for want of coal, the courts shall not invoke their authority to prevent the state itself from mining coal in the emergency. : How different this decision and the one of the Indiana federal judge, who permitted the use of the authority of his court against . the miners’ unions, one party in the coal dispute, in the vain at- tempt of Attorney General Palmer to settle the coal strike and get coal for the people! Judge Amidon, in his epoch-making opinion, s $ Yeovepnmenr - OFE/RTI OF 11/ Ngg[ "réfers briefly to the Indiana court and its fruitless injunction against one side in the controversy. He says: : We can get instruction from the experiences of the present strike, One of the outstanding facts is that the mines in North Dakota have actually been operated. The coal has been produced. The rights of private property have only been invaded to the extent that was neces- sary to safeguard society against a great and threatened disaster. At the same time the power of the nation has been used as I am asked to use the power of the district court of this district in the present appli- cation. All that can be achieved by means -of writs of injunction has been tried, and it has not produced a ton of coal. Néarly half a million miners continue the strike. As the winter advances the crisis in the East deepens. It needs only the presence of North Dakota tempera- tures in the East to call into immediate action something besides injunctions. = The government’s injunction against the coal miners did not produce a pound of coal, but the North Dakota mines.are running full blast under the*wise policy of a farmer governor, with which an enlightened judge refuses to interfere! STATE INSURANCE HE business in which, probably, the largest amount of profit .B .and “overhead” exists, is the insurance business. For in- stance in fire irisurance, out of every dollar paid by the in- sured in premiums, the companies take 40 to 50 cents for profits, commissions and “expenses,” so that for every dollar paid into the companies, only 50 to 60 cents is paid back to policyholders as re- imbursement for fire losses. Apologists for the insurance com- panies have argued that the nature of the business is such that it is risky and uncertain and that thus the profit should be high. But this is not true. No business is based on such mathematical cer- tainty. I_*‘lr_e undqrwriters know to within a few dollars just how many buildings will burn down next year, just what the loss will be and just how much is necessary to collect in premiums to cover it. " Few things are more certain than the law of averages. . North Dakota farmers for years paid insurance companies twice and three times what it was necessary to pay all the hail losses in the state. The actual cost of writing hail insurance and adjusting Josseg, on an etficiency basis, was not over 3 per cent of the sums paid for losses. Yet the companies, in commissions, -profits and other useless charges, used nearly 50 per cent of the ONE YEARS SAVINGS & ON HAIL INSURANCE & PREM!, I N\ NOORR FRRMERS money they collected from farmers to cover “costs.” - They spent for commissions, “expenses” -and profits as they spent to pay hail losses. : _.. The farmers’ government of North Dakota has put in state hail insurance. Its first year’s op8ration was reported the other day by Insurance Commissioner Olsness. The state paid $3:419,924 to farrpe?s for hail losses. The total expense for administering the hail insurance act was 2.17 per cent of the amount paid for losses. The farmers get hail protection for 28 cents an acre.- : They saved more than $4,000,000 during the last year on hail Insurance premiums. But this will not be the only saving in in- surance eosts in Nortlg Dakota. The state has undertaken the bond- ing of all public officials. -The state has also undertaken the in- surance of all public buildings against loss by fire and tornado. The Leader in an early issue will tell something about the initial experience of the state in these lines. . - =~ = o PAGE SIX S